The Mauritius office of ACCA * hosted a virtual roundtable on July 29, 2021 on the challenges facing businesses and accountants in the context of climate change. Several senior officials from the finance, accounting and ecological management consulting service sectors moderated this round table via the online platform Teams.
The participants were: Sunil Benimadhu (CEO of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius), Danny Balluck (director and CFO of Standard Chartered Bank), Sanju Deenapanray (director of Ecological Living in Action), Irshad Mallam Hassam (Partner of Nexia Baker & Arenson ), Faizal Khoodoruth (Director of KPMG Mauritius) and Shailen Ramgoolam (Partner of EY Mauritius).
The salient points of these discussions are that in the face of real and serious climate change, the political will, the strategic decisions of companies, the adaptation of accounting functions and tools and the availability of new expertise and certain funding are sometimes lacking. Why, stressed speakers, settle for having an approach that aims to reduce greenhouse gases within the framework of the existing economic model? Shouldn’t we take the opposite approach instead? That is to say, develop a different economic model, built around a significant reduction in the elements that contribute to climate change and its harmful effects ?
* Association of Chartered Certified AccountantsFounded in 1904, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants is the global professional accounting body offering the Chartered Accountant qualification. ACCA’s registered office is in London and the main administrative office is in Glasgow
